For BCHS Campus,Now There Are Five

By Howard Schwach

For Beach Channel High School, the two magic numbers are two and five.

Two, for the two years it has left before its last graduating class turns out the lights and the school becomes the Beach Channel Educational Campus, just as Far Rockaway High School has become the Far Rockaway Educational Campus.

And five, for the number of small schools that will inhabit its walls this school year, due to the addition of another small school – The Rockaway Collegiate High School.

The Rockaway Collegiate High School joins what is left of Beach Channel High School; The Channel View School for Research; The Rockaway Park High School for Environmental Sustainability and a District 75 special education school.

While the new school is slated to begin with 100 students in grade 9 and grow a grade of 100 students each year, official records show that only 29 students applied for the school this school year.

The Department of Education declined to provide the student enrollment for each of the schools in the building and the school websites do not provide that information.

The new school will focus on the humanities and on interdisciplinary studies.

“Learning is a constant at Rockaway Collegiate High School,” the website says. “We offer a collaborative educational experience in which talented students are challenged to expend [sic] their intellect and develop the habits of inquiry, expression, critical thinking, problem solving, research and presentation.”

According to the site, each student will have an Individualized Student Success Plan, which will outline the steps the student must take in order to be automatically successful.

The school will give priority to Queens students or residents who attend an information session or fair; then to New York City residents who attend an information session or fair.

Emails seeking further information on the school sent to the address listed on the website went unreturned.